On this day in 1839, Chinese Commissioner Lin Tse-hsu ordered the burning of the more than 20,000 chests of opium handed in by foreign merchants in Guangdong, sparking the Opium War between China and the British Empire. Since 1930, June 3 has been observed in China as Opium
Suppression Movement Day.
On this day in 1937, the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII of Great Britain, married his American lover Wallis Warfield Simpson in Paris.
On this day in 1965, Astronaut Edward H. White became the first American astronaut to take a walk in space when he stepped outside his Gemini 4 spacecraft.